Author Archives: Yves Smith
The Disheartening State of American Incomes
Doug Short at Global Economic Intersection has a must-read post that pulls together some Census Report data on US incomes since 1967 and draws some conclusions. He looks first at real, rather than nominal, incomes, and shows how income in the top 5% and top quintile have grown faster than for the rest of the population
Read more...Bank of America Offers Mods with a Gag Order to Buy Silence
It’s hard to tell whether the situation described in an article the New Haven Register is very unusual, or just under the radar by design. But either way, it does not pass the smell test.
Read more...Michael Hudson: QE3 – Another Fed Giveaway to the Banks
In this Real News Network interview, Michael Hudson gives a high level discussion of why the Fed’s claim that QE3 will help employment needs to be taken with a fistful of salt.
Read more...Philip Pilkington: The 19th Century Long Depression: How it Fostered Oligopolistic Capitalism and Serves as a Model for Austerity
By Philip Pilkington, a writer and journalist who is in the process of moving to London. You can follow him on Twitter at @pilkingtonphil
You can live in this illusion
You can choose to believe
You keep looking but you can’t find the woods
While you’re hiding in the trees
– Nine Inch Nails ‘Right Where it Belongs”
Many people that I meet who are vaguely interested in economics – usually people in academia outside of the economics departments or working in lower tier sectors of banking and finance – are enamoured with libertarianism and its economic doctrines. Meanwhile the Republican Vice Presidential nominee – an Ayn Rand obsessive – has channelled such ideas into a truly otherworldly budget proposal.
Libertarianism-lite has become the last refuge for the ideological conservative.
Read more...Links 9/23/12
“The Drugs Don’t Work”: How the Medical-Industrial Complex Systematically Suppresses Negative Studies
We’ve written a lot about the scientism of mainstream economics, both here and in ECONNED, and how these trappings have let the discipline continue to have a special seat at the policy table despite ample evidence of its failure. As bad as this is, it pales in comparison to the overt corruption of science at work in the drug arena. Although this issue comes to light from time to time, often in the context of litigation, the lay public is largely ignorant of how systematic and pervasive the efforts are to undermine good research practice in order to foist more, expensive, and sometimes dangerous drugs onto patients.
Read more...On Combatting Trolls
Long-standing readers have noticed an increase in the amount of trolling in the comments section. It shouldn’t come as a surprise. As traditional broadcast media are becoming less important, both advertisers and PR firms are seeking to influence opinion and popular tastes through social media and blogs. Since I prefer to take a more hands-off approach to the comments section that other bloggers do, it puts me in a bit of a quandary. But the increase in orchestrated efforts to attack certain posts leaves me with no choice but to intervene more heavily.
The post last week from Project S.H.A.M.E. on Megan McArdle is an illustration.
Read more...Wolf Richter: Catalonia Cries for Independence While the Spanish Military Threatens To “Crush” The “Vultures”
Yves here. Readers in Spain have dismissed the possibility of a Spanish breakup. But long-simmering regional frustrations combined with a rapidly deteriorating economy have the potential to produce paralyzing levels of civil disobedience.
Read more...Links 9/21/12
FHFA to States that Uphold the Rule of Law: Drop Dead
If you had any doubt that the ongoing coup by bankers and their allies was proceeding apace, the latest story from Shahien Nasiripour of the Financial Times should settle all doubts.
Read more...Europe’s Economy Sinks from Sight
By Delusional Economics, who is determined to cleanse the daily flow of vested interests propaganda to produce a balanced counterpoint. Cross posted from MacroBusiness.
Probably best if you spike your morning coffee before reading any further.
Read more...The Bears Explain Where Money Comes From
I got an ugly reminder today of how some people are rabidly attached to the view that debt is the worst evil afflicting modern society (see what happens when you make it easy to get laid and make a boatload of mood altering drugs available with a prescription? The moralists focus their vitriol on the now shorter list of remaining vices).
Read more...Yes, Really, Truly, No Joke, That Schneiderman Mortgage Task Force is Gonna Get Someone….Soon!
I’m sure the banksters are quaking in their boots. Eric Schneiderman, the New York state attorney general whose joining a heretofore moribund mortgage fraud task force and withdrawing from opposition to the horrid mortgage settlement allowed the Administration to push the bank-friendy deal across the line, is now making noises that really, truly, he and his Federal best buddies are gonna nail some baddies really soon. From Reuters:
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